To get the syllables correct in the right direction

was to disclose god. The syllables incorrect in

inflection and tone, a glitch in the song, ended wrong

in a line outside the half-way house in the snow

that veiled faces and the world because someone

had pulled the alarm rather than face the shakedown

and melodrama and affliction and unearthed works.

Sirens were the medium for the immediate syntax

of disgrace and me, with my repertoire of words,

a surplus of vowels and my hands over my ears.